As a person becomes gluten free, he or she will go through many steps including reorganizing the kitchen, eliminating gluten from his or her diet, and checking personal care products for gluten. However, many people forget about their pets. Pet food often contains gluten either as a main ingredient or as filler. Simply using caution while feeding pets doesn’t make the owner safe. That pet will cuddle, lick, and lie on their owners. This proximity could make a gluten-free person sick. Gluten-free pet food is available for most pets including dogs, cats, birds, and rodents.
Artemis
Artemis is an almost entirely gluten-free line of pet food made for all ages and breeds of dogs and cats. Artemis doesn’t use corn, soy, or wheat gluten in any products except the Holistic Cat Line, which contains corn gluten meal. They don’t have an online store, but their website includes locations and websites of retailers who sell their products. The company has a relatively widespread range across the United States and limited locations within Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Blue Seal Country Store
Blue Seal is a very complete pet food and livestock feed line including food for dairy cattle, beef cattle, horses, sheep, goats, llamas, pigs, deer, dogs, cats, rabbits, wild birds, caged birds, poultry, herbivore zoo animals, and fish. None of their dry pet foods contain gluten. They have an online store at their website and they list all of their locations which are exclusively on the east coast of the United States.
Champion Pet Foods
This pet food of the year winner for the years of 2009-2010 has been winning awards consistently since 2007. Locally sources ingredients from western Canada are delivered to the plant daily. Their pet food brands, Acana and Orijen, include full dog and cat food lines. The website does not have an online store, but the brands are widely available in Canada and the Western United States and selectively available elsewhere in the United States and world-wide.
Old Mother Hubbard
Old Mother Hubbard is very widely distributed and available at Petco and Petsmart, as well as other pet stores in the United States and Canada. Their products don’t contain gluten, corn, or soy. Their products include a full line of dog foods including gluten-free vitamins.
Oxbow
This pet food brand contains lines for guinea pigs, chinchillas, rats, hamsters, gerbils, mice, tortoises, and iguanas. Their products contain gluten, but they don’t specify how their oat hay was grown. Their products are available at limited United States locations and online at www.petfooddirect.com.
Remember to always check with the manufacturer before ordering the first time and then about every year afterward to make sure that the company hasn’t changed it’s manufacturing practices. Feeding a gluten-free pet takes a bit more effort and can be more expensive, but keeping both the owner and the pet healthy is worth it.
Source:
http://www.thepetfoodlist.com. "The Pet Food List." 2007
Amy Schumaker - Amy is a young musician based out of Philadelphia. A native of northeast Ohio, she went to Capital University Conservatory of Music, where ...
